departed from the earthly scene, and a galaxy of new stars were glittering in the musical horizon.  Giulia Grisi, Clara Novello, Pauline Viardot, Fanny Per-siani, Jenny Lind, Maretta Alboni, Nantier Didier, Sophie Cruvelli, Catherine Hayes, Louisa Pyne, Duprez, Mario, Ronconi, and others—­all these had arisen since the day she had left the art world as Countess Rossi.  Only the joyous and warmhearted Lablache was left of her old comrades to welcome her back to the scene of her old triumphs.

Her reappearance as Linda, on July 7, 1849, was the occasion of a cordial and sympathetic reception on the part of a very brilliant and distinguished audience.  The first notes of the “polacca” were sufficient to show that the great artist was in her true place again, and that the mature woman had lost but little of the artistic fascinations of the gifted girl.  Of course, time had robbed her of one or two upper notes, but the skill, grace, and precision with which she utilized every atom of her power, the incomparable steadiness and finish with which she wrought out the composer’s intentions, the marvelous flexibility of her execution, she retained in all their pristine excellence.  The loss of youthful freshness was atoned for by the deeper passion and feeling which in an indefinable way permeated all her efforts, and gave them a dramatic glow lacking in earlier days.  She was rapturously greeted as a dear friend come back in the later sunny days.  In “La Figlia del Reggimento,” which Jenny Lind had brought to England and made her own peculiar property, Mme. Sontag was adjudged to be by far the greater, both vocally and dramatically.  As a singer of Mozart’s music she was incomparably superior to all.  Her taste, steadiness, suavity, and solid knowledge suited a style very difficult for a southern singer to acquire.  Chorley repeated the musical opinion of his time in saying:  “The easy, equable flow demanded by Mozart’s compositions, so melodious, so wondrously sustained, so sentimental (dare I say so rarely impassioned?); that assertion of individuality which distinguishes a singer from a machine when dealing with singers’ music; that charm which belongs to a keen appreciation of elegance, but which can only be perfected when Nature has been genial, have never been so perfectly combined (in my experience) as in her.”  If Sontag did not possess the highest genius of the lyric artist, she had un-equaled grace and sense of artistic propriety, and with that grace an untiring desire and energy in giving her very best to the public on all occasions when she appeared.  Her constancy and loyalty to her audience were moral qualities which wonderfully enhanced her value and charm as a singer.